outdoor

Over the past couple of weeks I have been out picking a conglomerate of berries in search of the ultimate berry, the Alaskan blueberry. *dun dun dun* Yea I never found em. Sneaky little buggers went ripe way early this year and got gobbled up by the more berry savvy people than myself.

Realizing the fact that I wasn’t going to find any I went in search of a yummy jam recipe. I don’t know the first thing about jelly or jam but one thing I discovered, there are four things needed; berries, pectin, jars and heat. The REAL trick is getting that mixture just freaking right.

For mine these are the amounts of everything I used; 4 cups of… Chopped rhubarb, pears, pre frozen rosehips and high bush cranberries. (the freezing was required since even those buggers are almost past ripe and its only the first couple weeks in freaking August. So to mimic first frost BAM the hooman freezer)…. The final bit was a mix of low bush cranberries and what are called crowberries. (I froze this mix as well because of the cranberries) This mix amounted to give or take 4 cups. (heavy on the give side of that equation)

I combined it all into a LARGE pot with just enough water to cover everything and let it simmer. I only did about 30 minutes but I strongly recommend an hour to a hour and a half. (I added some cloves in at this simmering stage and think it added to the flavor. Gave it a homey flavor.)

When it was done I then extracted the juices from everything. I recommend that if you have a juicer use it. I tried blending some and that was a HORRIBLE idea. It obviously made a big ass goopy mess… I was sleep deprived. Shoosh judgments lol. Trying to get the juices at that point was ALMOST not worth it.

Once all the juice was extracted I put the juices back into the large pot and used about 6 cups of sugar (if you use crowberries I’d recommend only about 4-5 cups as they are really sweet. Although the six was well received by tasters.) I only had 1- 4.something oz size pectin container the store sells. With this amount use more…. Like 5-6. The one container will make a syrup.

Bring the mix to a rolling boil for about 5-8 minutes stirring constantly. ( the juices will double in volume so be sure to have a large enough pot you can use. I didn’t the first time….)

Put the mix into whatever jars you are wanting to than secure the lids and give them a water bath for approximately 5-7 minutes, until the lids no longer pop up and down. The water shouldn’t come up over the lids but if it does I wouldn’t stress it. It did with some of mine and they all turned out fine.

During the end of May I decided to finally start my garden. If I was anywhere else that would have been WAY late but I’m in Fairbanks Alaska so it’s quite normal.

It is expensive as hell to start from young plants but I hadn’t gotten any seeds started and I had enough to do it. Won’t say how much it was for a few plants *Cough*250*Cough* To be fair though I bought three bags of soil and two of the plants were very large already bearing blooms and baby veggies.

I have attempted gardens in the past and they have proven to be unsuccessful to say the least. With that in mind I didn’t have high hopes but have been thrilled with the results……… minus the one casualty, the cucumber. We had a pretty cold couple of nights and even though the tag thing SAID cold hardy it was a LIE. Everything else LOVED the cold….. Bunch of weirdo plants I tell ya.

I was able to use a couple old tires my mother in law had laying around for the zucchini and then the pot the zucchini came in for the tomato plant which has just exploded. There were other various pots laying around that I was able to use for the two pepper plants and the lettuce once it was ready to transplant.

I had been saving bottles which I drilled holes along the bottom and one side. I only did about 6 holes going up (two rows of three staggered). I used the bottles as self watering things so all I’d have to do is fill those and not have to worry about the water getting on the plant and causing damage. I love how easy it is to water. I have them in all the pots except the baby basil and the oregano in the rectangle planter box.